The Young Pole seemed incapable of realising that the climax had come. He
lay on his back, cringing a little and laughing foolishly. The Zulu (who
slept next to him on our side) had, apparently, just lighted a cigarette
which projected upward from a slender holder. The Zulu's face was as
always absolutely expressionless. His chin, with a goodly growth of
beard, protruded tranquilly from the blanket which concealed the rest of
him with the exception of his feet--feet which were ensconced in large,
somewhat clumsy, leather boots. As The Zulu wore no socks, the Xs of the
rawhide lacings on his bare flesh (blue, of course, with cold) presented
a rather fascinating design. The Zulu was, to all intents and purposes,
gazing at the ceiling....
Bill The Hollander, clad only in his shirt, his long lean muscled legs
planted far apart, shook one fist after another at the recumbent Young
Pole, thundering (curiously enough in English):
"Come on you _Gottverdummer_ son-of-a-bitch of a Polak bastard and fight!
Get up out o' there you Polak hoor and I'll kill you, you _Gottverdummer_
bastard you! I stood enough o' your _Gottverdummer_ nonsense you
_Gottverdummer_" etc.
As Bill The Hollander's thunder crescendoed steadily, cramming the utmost
corners of The Enormous Room with _Gottverdummers_ which echoingly
telescoped one another, producing a dim huge shaggy mass of vocal anger,
The Young Pole began to laugh less and less; began to plead and excuse
and palliate and demonstrate--and all the while the triangular tower in
its naked legs and its palpitating chemise brandished its vast fists
nearer and nearer, its ghastly yellow lips hurling cumulative volumes of
rhythmic profanity, its blue eyes snapping like fire-crackers, its
enormous hairy chest heaving and tumbling like a monstrous hunk of
sea-weed, its flat soiled feet curling and uncurling their ten sour
mutilated toes.
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